


Beyond The Rain

by Drunkportuguese



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Blood, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Mild Gore, Sad Ending, Skinny!Steve, Violence, mermaid!bucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 11:55:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15339333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drunkportuguese/pseuds/Drunkportuguese
Summary: His ma had always warned him of the dangers of straying too far into the ocean - the unpredictable currents, the taller waves, the dangerous rockfall would he let the current take him towards the towering, sharp cliff - the old giant who sat on the other side of the river’s mouth.Little did Steve know, there were other, new dangers in the deep dark beyond what the surface would ever let him see.-or-Steve Rogers has lived in the second-rate port town’s armpit for as long as he knows. All he’s got to live for is the sea, but when a mysterious creature comes in contact with him and Steve barely escapes alive, he realizes the threat is taking from him his remaining source of happiness, and he’s determined to take it back.





	Beyond The Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OhCaptainMyCaptain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhCaptainMyCaptain/gifts).



> This fic, and possibly every single one that comes next from me, is dedicated to OhCaptainMyCaptain. Your After Hours fic was what really started this all for me. It doesn’t matter how good of a writer I get, I’ll never, never be able to properly convey my admiration for you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart and soul.
> 
> On a side note, I want to apologize to the asthmatics out there reading this, but Steve’s asthma in this story is purposely portrayed unrealistically (although it’s actually not that bad). I wanted Steve to keep as many of his canon maladies, and I simply couldn’t throw out asthma, not only because it seems to be the only conditions he’s ever portrayed with, but also because I simply can’t imagine skinny!Steve without it.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Worth it? Everything is worth it_

_If the soul is not small._

_Those who want to go beyond the rain_

_Have to go beyond agony and pain._

_He, to the sea, the danger and the abyss gave,_

_But it is in him, that he has mirrored the sky._

~ Fernando Pessoa, “Mensagem”, chapter “X. Mar Português” (translated and edited by me)

 

-;-

Five sharp in the morning, as the last of the morning dew settled, and the fog began lazily rolling off the sea, Steve got up in a jump and ran out the door with his board snug under his arm not even half an hour later.

Everything was dead silent, except for the sound of his bare feet sinking into the sand, speeding towards the sea as fast as his weak heart could manage. The still dark sky seemed to radiate enthusiasm itself, starlight beaming down through dark, polluted clouds and urging Steve to find his happiness yet again.

He adjusted his grip on the board. Every day the waves would call him. And every day Steve would answer.

 

-;-

And this day started out no different.

Steve ran, straight like an arrow towards the big dune that blocked the view to his beautiful, beautiful sea. Huffing, gasping, thighs warning a cramp but mind willing himself forward, the sea slowly but surely appeared in all its misty glory as Steve got closer to the very top of the big dune.

Seconds away of choking for a breath, Steve stopped, digging the heels of his hands into his thighs, pleased with the beautiful view.

Unlike his frail body, his appetite and admiration for the sea was tireless. He began his hurried descent towards the edge of the sand with a spring in his step.

Steve stopped at the edge of the beach, wet sand clinging to his skin and fast breaths condensing in the freezing air. The ice cold waves lapped at his feet, making his toes numb and properly waking him up, making his vision sharper, less and less foggy from the sleep as his breathing evened.

The quiet movement of the sea and a lone seagull were all he could hear, so different from the noises of the city he had never really grown accustomed to. The silence of the beach was deafening, and he loved this atmosphere with all his soul.

 

Stripping his shirt and throwing it blindly behind him, he tied a double knot on the drawstring of his oversized board shorts. He then bent down to wrap the velcro cuff around his ankle, wiping away a few grains of clingy sand, and he was ready to go into the water.

He ran his fingers through his hair, gently pushing the golden bangs out of his eyes. Steve basked in the numbing feeling the water gave him, relieving his young joints of the pain he’d known since he was born. He was happy.

One more step, and the water licked at his chest, splashing his face with the tiniest salty droplets. A couple of loose strands of slippery algae brushed against the side of his waist, and goosebumps ran up his spine. At the bottom, where swirling sand curled and snaked around his ankles, a small crab buried itself in the sand.

He smiled.

_‘I’ll never get tired of this.’_

 

Belly down on his board, Steve swam away from the coast until he was satisfied with the distance, his arms starting to feel numb from the cold water and the wind catching on the wet skin, nearing pain, but not quite there yet. He shakily maneuvered himself on top of his light wooden board and sat cross legged, straightened his back and lifted his eyes, breathing slowly - in... out… letting the sea seep into his lungs, into his blood, letting it engulf his soul.

The water was very calm today. Only a handful of waves made him momentarily grip the board, but never coming close to throwing him out of the safety of it.

 _‘Not feeling like it today, huh?’_ Steve thought, looking vaguely into the water ahead of him, blue eyes unfocused.

The sea is moody, has its own wants - Steve had learned that a long time ago. Sometimes it just didn’t _want_  to cooperate.

 

Eventually, Steve grew restless, felt the salt crawling under his skin, the swing of the waves gnawing at his mind, whispering  _‘surf, ride the waves, go, right now, you need it, and you know it, go.. the sea is waiting…_

_‘... it has been waiting forever…’_

 

He figured maybe he __could__ venture a little further out, where the waves could be higher... so he did.

Belly down once again, he slithered down the board until his legs could move more of less freely, and started kicking, gliding across to where the surface of the water had a more greenish tint to it.

His ma, bless her, she’d never let him go so far, and deep down Steve felt like he was somewhat betraying her with this. Before TB chained her to a bed for the rest of her life, she’d sit on top of the big dune, looking out for him like a lighthouse, a guardian angel, while Steve swam up the sea, and calling out when he’d go too far away.

Whenever Steve was deep in the city working, he missed the silence of the sea, the peace and relief of it... but he also missed his ma’s protective presence and her kind smile, always shining through the darkness of their lives. Some days he didn’t know which he missed more.

 

The sea kept calling him, urging him to go further, look for the waves, find his happiness at last.

His ma had always warned him of the dangers of straying too far into the ocean - the unpredictable currents, the taller waves, the dangerous rockfall would he let the current take him towards the towering, sharp cliff - the old giant who sat on the other side of the river’s mouth.

 

-;-

Steve considered turning back, things could quickly  go south would he let himself get carried by the strong, deadly riptide. Even if he didn’t quite like to admit it, no wave would ever be worth his life.

But he’d grown with the tide and the currents, with salt in his hair and sand sticking to his ankles - he’d be more than fine.

He hoped.

 

Squirming up the board and sitting up again, he huffed at the feel and sight of even sleepier waters. He expected the waves this far would be able to in the least sway his board - but the tide didn’t give him that pleasure. The call of the sea faded away from him, dissipated into the air.

Today, he would be left alone with his thoughts.

 

And those thoughts did not have friendly intentions. They never did.

His eyes burrowed into the foggy light of the rising sun.

Who was he trying to fool? He wasn’t at peace, never really had been. He couldn’t sleep; he ate a single, poor meal a day, sometimes nothing at all, and all of his possessions fit inside a trash bag.

He punched the board, cursed at the ocean. He was angry. _So angry._

Angry at the world, angry at the disease and sadness that plagued his life. Not a day went by where he didn’t feel his lungs strain, his bones creak, and his blood run slow, making him lightheaded and weak… _making others pity him._

His ma told him he had been born under a bad sign, _‘Bad luck Stevie, that’s all. But you’re a strong boy, I know you’ll always make it through.’_ She’s always cared for him so much. Always believed in him, when even he _himself_ wouldn’t.

Looks like today, he missed her more than he missed the ocean.

 

Steve breathed in, again, as deep as his asthmatic lungs would let him. He... wasn’t angry, he just- he was just-

...tired.

Steve was tired.

His life hadn’t been easy right from the get-go. His father died before Steve was even born, so he was more of a distant, blurry figure than anything else.

But his mother was a very different story. When his ma passed away… he broke into a million little shards. She’d been his lifeboat his whole life, him always being too sick and weak to land a proper job, to make a living by himself.

He’d always felt guilty about it, not being able to give back to his ma how much she gave him. The days where that guilt and regret resurfaced were dark, _dark_ days, with even darker nights.

Now, he managed to live - no, _survive_  - getting meals at the church and volunteering with the sick and elderly when he could, earning what little he had doing odd jobs around town - tasks that no one else would dare to do.

Small, skinny body like his was just the right size to poke around for skunks and other rabid intruders under people’s houses, or cleaning the odd corners of the factory’s machines. He hated the work, but it was either that or starvation.

 

Steve lived in an abandoned building. He slept on the floor with a bent arm for a pillow, inside a room where the door wouldn’t close all the way and the cracked walls couldn’t muffle all the noise from the rats and the coke addicts outside.

But what bothered him the most was the fact that he couldn’t hear, couldn’t even __see__ the sea from the ruins he called home. Every time he’d go back home for the night he’d feel himself being swallowed by incredible sadness and despair, a deep, soul-crushing longing for the water, the tide, and its painless and ever soothing presence.

Maybe, after all, he missed the sea more than his ma.

 

The sea was all he had.

Everything else in his life was in pieces, sick and dirty and blody, but the sea... the water smiled, deep blue surrounding him in a friendly embrace, every time, every day.

When he swam away from the city, all his worries would dissolve, even if for only a moment - there was no crippling hunger among the waves, and no disease stalking, with it’s bloodshot eyes waiting to strike just around the corner.

Just the tide, the salt and the breeze, away from everyone and everything.

And now, even the nature’s gift itself was refusing him of what little happiness he had left to enjoy.

Maybe… maybe if he swam a little further…

 

He could feel the sea calling him again… _come to me…_

_come back to me..._

__

_my son…_

 

His ma… his _dear_ ma was calling him…

 

 

 

Today, he missed both.

 

-;-

Suddenly, his leg was caught on something that pulled him off of the board and into the cold water. Before he could so much as grasp what was happening, a warm hand took hold of his jaw, fingers digging into the skin painfully, pulling him down into the dark depths.

He opened his eyes, but another hand quickly covered them, and he was surrounded by the deepest darkness he’d ever experienced, hearing the blood pumping through his veins, and nothing else.

The string of the board pulled at his ankle, anchoring him to the surface. He tried to free himself from the tight grip, kicking his legs, desperate to get away from whatever was taking hold of him; but no matter how hard he twisted, how many times he tried to pry the fingers off his face, he was always too weak.

He gave up struggling when he noticed he wasn’t being hurt at all.

 

The grip on his jaw eased, yet it remained firm. A warning.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be...inspecting him, studying him. Steve couldn’t see it, but he could feel the unusually warm hands moving his head from side to side, slowly, as if it had all the time in the world.

Then, something flimsy - felt like a piece of torn fabric - replaced the hand, covering his eyes. Whatever this was, it knew the purpose of a blindfold, and that worried Steve to the marrow.

It also knew that Steve would try to take it off immediately, because his hands were grabbed and held behind his back not a second later by a strong hand, which would surely leave bruises blooming all over his wrists - would he get out of this alive.

But then, he felt the velcro strap at his ankle being opened, and he finally assessed the situation with logic, mind suddenly clear as glass. He was in the middle of the ocean, being _held underwater_  by an _unknown creature._

Where it any other person, they’d think this was the end. But not for Steve. He is, after all, his ma’s _strong boy_  and it wasn’t today that he was going to prove her wrong.

Whatever he had stumbled into was smart, and definitely not human, despite the similarities. His lungs tried to shove their way out of his chest, pushing at the ribs, making him hurt all over. He was probably going to be eaten alive. He should’ve listened to his ma, he should’ve stayed behi-

The creature’s _face_ touched behind his ear, and Steve froze. It was human, as far as he could tell - a human nose, rubbing behind his ear and travelling a little down to where his jaw ended.

Slowly, painfully slowly, the creature went further down, gingerly trailing under his chin, and Steve could not move for the life of him.

A second hand firmly gripped his hair and exposed his throat, Steve’s eyes shooting up to a sky he could not see. He tried to shake it off of him, get away from the creature, but the iron grip on his wrists was too strong to break.

 _‘This is it,’_ he thought, panicked, _‘this is how I die.’_

Steve was expecting a bite to the throat, blood spilled and skin ripped apart by sharp teeth, a sobbed choke - and that would be it. That would be how Steve Rogers would go from this one to the next. Survived all those illnesses for nothing.

 _No _.__  He wouldn’t dare go against his mother’s word, not in a thousand suns. She wouldn’t give up so easily, and neither is he.

His mind raced, desperately trying to come up with a last minute plan for survival, when the creature caressed his wrist with a thumb, swimming swiftly around him, and gently _kissed_ his Adam’s apple.

It wasn’t so much a kiss, as a touch with the lips, bridge of the nose snug against Steve’s jaw in a gesture that was so intimate, it seemed bizarre for such an already outlandish experience. It inhaled deeply, water flowing around Steve’s neck, mouth ghosting over the skin, barely nipping at his throat.

When the creature’s mouth moved to the side of his neck, lips pressing harder on the skin, he finally understood the reason for it all.

In the soft spot of his neck, right by his windpipe, laid a main artery, deliciously swollen by the rapid heartbeat and cold water. The creature was feeling, _savoring_ his heartbeat, tracking the movements of the blood rushing under his skin. Steve swallowed hard, and the creature’s tongue prodded out of its mouth, broad and slimy, pressing against as much of the moving muscle as it could, as if it _couldn’t get enough_  of the feeling of it. The hand entwined in his hair slid down to the crook of his neck, keeping his head bent and thumb pressing on the bone behind his ear.

Steve could feel sharp teeth touching him, sinking further down into the thin skin, pressing harder, and harder...

 

Steve’s icy blue eyes were wide open under the blindfold, red and stinging from the water, as dark and wide as the sea around him.

Unwilling to embrace what could be his final fate, he did his best to relax and focus as he felt the teeth scrape against his skin. The creature, now distracted with the piece of _throat_ it was about to chew on, had stopped focusing on keeping such a strong grip on his wrists.

Fool’s mistake.

Using it to his advantage, Steve violently pushed his hands away from each other, easily freeing himself from the creature’s then gentle hold. He darted out his hands to push himself away from the thing, maybe disorient it as well - try to get a head start on the now excruciating swim to the beach.

The cold, trembling palms of his hands touched a _human_ chest, radiating warmth like a furnace, a stark contrast to the ice cold water around them - and Steve froze, stopped dead in his tracks. It was so close to him...

And the skin was _odd_... it felt silky smooth under his fingertips, like scales, and yet still elastic like human skin. It was strange, but... pleasant. He was sure he had never touched anything so familiar and yet so alienating before.

 

The creature quickly pulled its mouth away from Steve’s throat. Although it didn’t let go of the back of his head, Steve wondered if it was going to let him go away, escape; and yet, gently, but firmly, it pushed Steve’s hands _away_ from its warm body, and _spoke._

 

 _Well, this is new _…__ the thing said, _inside his mind_ , in a raspy, grave voice Steve couldn’t recognize.

 _‘Did- did it just-’_ Steve’s blood ran ice cold, he couldn’t move. Wouldn’t __dare__  to move. Every cell in his body was telling him to stay still-

 

_if it’s too cold, come back_

_if you see a shark, pretend you’re ****dead** **_

_be careful_

_shark, pretend you’re ****dead** **_

_there are dangerous things in there_

_you’re ****dead** **_

_“dead…”_

_‘Am I dead? Is this... the afterlife?’_  he thought, wondering when he had gotten killed. If he did, this was surely not the heaven the bible preached - _‘Wait...am I in... hell? Why am I in hell?!’_

 

 _You seem surprised. Didn’t your mother warn you about me?_  It said, again, and the thumb behind his ear stroked his skin gently.

Before he could properly answer, his air ran out, and a violent reflex gasp had him inhale salty water directly into his weak, sick lungs.

Immediately coughing, stomach churning with the sudden effort, Steve inhaled even more water as he struggled. He was suddenly pushed up - the blindfold ripped away from his face - and was thrown on top of his board face down, shivering, arms and legs splayed out touching the deathly cold water. He weakly tucked his limbs under him, curled in on himself while coughing out a mix of blood and spit and salt water.

Steve lost consciousness before he could even open his eyes.

-;-

He woke up with the tangy taste of blood and bile overwhelming any possible smell, sand prickling at the left side of his upper body. He felt his board under his legs, and the velcro strap was again scraping around his ankle, looking like it was hastily fastened, from how twisted and uneven it looked.

He... was back on the beach. How did the current drag him _inland?_

 _ _‘_...the creature?’_ He couldn’t organize his thoughts fast enough.

Steve got up slowly, limbs shaking from the cold and the effort, whole body tingling as the blood started flowing properly, and spit out remnants of bile, sand, and clotted blood. A bright yellow light forced him to squint to see - it was the sun, already up. Judging by the height of it, Steve had been out cold for almost five or even six hours.

His bones whined and his stomach rumbled. He’d get to the bottom of the situation later. He grabbed the board, wiping away a couple of algae strands, and limped towards the church, not bothering to go home to put on his shoes, or more clothing.

Was he saved? And why? Would the creature rather eat him alive, and not dead, like one of those exotic boas they showed at the circus?

Steve shook his head; he’d rather not dwell on the implications of that - what mattered was that he was alive.

 

Not well, but at least alive. And that had always been enough.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so much for reading my work! If you want to contact me outside of AO3, my only social media account is my Tumblr by the same username, or you can try emailing me to drunkportuguese@gmail.com , if you want me to beta for you!
> 
> Any and all kind of comments are appreciated! To clarify: I am completely okay with any kind of criticism, but if you want to send hate specifically, do it by Tumblr - its anonymous ask feature will prevent you from embarrassing yourself here out in the public lmao
> 
> Regarding updates, I cannot promise anything. I will eventually get this fic out of the way, but if you want to keep up with the story, it’s best if you subscribe, instead of constantly checking for updates! Thank you for understanding!


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